


Buffy by the Hundreds: Pre Series

by Stayawhile



Series: Buffy by the Hundreds [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 23:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14223948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayawhile/pseuds/Stayawhile
Summary: Long ago, in a faraway galaxy called LiveJournal, there was a community called Open on Sunday. Each Sunday, a prompt would be posted, and during the week participants would write a drabble (a story of exactly one hundred words) based on the prompt. I have compiled what I wrote there into a series called Buffy by the Hundreds.These 16 chapters cover events that occurred before the series began.  Enjoy!





	1. Slayers Other Than Buffy

It helped a bit, that he hadn’t been given a choice either. 

He told me so, one afternoon, over tea. Lifting his cup, he tried not to wince as bruises bloomed under his suit from our training session, where my anger had bled through. I began to see how the rigid armor of tradition held him upright, both protection and prison. But the gift he wanted to give me was his strength, not mine. 

We would never be close, my Watcher and I. He lived for denial and duty, I for for the passionate hunt. I could only forgive him.


	2. Writing

William didn’t fear dying, but what came after. His father had been an ordinary man, a good man, but fifteen years later no one spoke of him, or remembered anything he had said or done. It was as if the man had never existed at all, his name swept away as cleanly as the ashes the maid brushed from the hearth.

That fear drove his poetry. No one forgot Homer, Shakespeare, Dante. Their flesh and bones might be dust, but their work lived on, their words were still spoken aloud.

So he wrote, knowing no other way to cheat death.


	3. Mouth/Tongue

First: Nothing. Darkness. A screaming imperative: up, UP!

He found himself alone beside his open grave, unafraid, his memory returning in tiny, vivid flashes: a dark-eyed woman in an alley; his mother, pale and coughing; Cecily’s contemptuous face. 

The night was vibrant, electric: he could see far better than he ever had with his spectacles, hear everything, smell…there, a girl, a streetwalker, sweat and cheap perfume and underneath it, a humming note of blood.

He licked his lips, his tongue passing over sharp fangs. He remembered the dark-eyed woman’s face then, and understood.

The thing that had been William smiled.


	4. Unexpected

Angelus had been furious with Darla when she dragged him to England. Didn’t she see how they looked at him when they heard his accent? Like he was a horse apple they'd stepped on. Maybe she wanted him to kill them, all even if it was dangerous. He hated the restraint of having to keep the body count hidden but he understood the reasoning. 

Then he saw her, a dark-haired lissome girl. A lovely creature who could see the future was something rare and unexpected. Angelus knew he had to have her. Darla just smiled when he told her.


	5. Once Upon A Time

She was mad, he knew. Wicked and fanciful, beautiful and cruel, she heard the stars singing. Sometimes their songs made her weep.

He couldn’t help loving her, pitying her madness even as he reveled in the merciless carnage they shared. 

During the day, behind velvet curtains that blocked the sun, he read fairy tales to her: wolves in the forest, bright sharp teeth ready for the unwary; true love encircled by blood and pain and magic. 

While she slept, he wrote. _Once upon a time, a dark princess transformed a frightened rabbit into a wolf, and they lived ever after…_


	6. Sound

“Hush, love. Shhh…” 

Spike strokes her, holds her close, and she clutches Miss Edith tightly. Soon he is asleep, still as undeath, but Drusilla knows she will not rest.

Spike can’t hear the chattering stars, singing in their high, strange voices. Sometimes he can drown them out. When he takes her in his arms or ties her to the wall, she cries and whimpers and only her own voice fills her ears. Or he brings home a treat for dinner and makes hours of lovely, noisy screaming.

But he never hears the stars, telling stories in her mother’s stolen voice.


	7. Animal

Spike bounced around the room, laughing, re-enacting his latest brawl. “Thought they had me, but I knocked their heads together and drained the pair of ‘em before they came to!” 

Angelus rolled his eyes in disgust. What had that taken? Ten minutes from start to finish? The boy had no respect for the vampire’s art, the long slow waltz of terror and suffering. A victim was more than a quick snack. A true vamp could draw days, even weeks of amusement from a human’s pain, and have them begging for death by the end. 

Really, Spike was such an animal.


	8. Soul

Normally she wouldn’t pour out her heart like this to a white chick.

“That rat bastard, say he gonna ruin my career, make sure I never get a record deal. Saying I disrespected him. Damn, girl, all I wanted was a little respect for me!”

“Don’t you just wish he’d…” she began.

Aretha interrupted. “Tell you what I wish. I wish I was so famous he’d spend his life kicking himself for treating me so bad. All ‘a Motown knowing my name, and he ain't nobody.”

The blonde in the mini smiled. “Done. You’re gonna be the Queen of Soul.”


	9. Strange Dinners

Best thing about the sixties was that Dru fit right in—didn’t have to worry about explainin’ her fancies, there were dozens of hippie chicks every bit as daft and dreamy. Easy, too—put a bit of a Liverpool spin on the accent and they were out of their clothes like that. Free love, they called it. Good times.

Woodstock—that was a party. Great music, lots of tasty treats wandering round all stoned and trusting. Good fun, till I fed off one who was tripping. Spent six hours sitting in the mud watching my hand. Bloody boring, that was!


	10. One Hundred

Spike inhales, watching the crowd from his barstool. Drusilla’s head is full of odd fancies, but sometimes, like today, she is perfectly accurate. Tonight is precisely one hundred years since William died and was reborn as a vampire. He has hardly thought of his human life in decades, but today reminiscence took him over, making him moody. Drusilla finally pushed him out the door, annoyed and petulant. “Go eat someone, then, you’ll feel better.” 

He rises, stubbing out his cigarette on the bar. The Clash is taking the stage. Enough introspection. Time to dance, start a fight, shed some blood.


	11. Cup

Exhausted but exhilarated , she is finally holding her newborn daughter, cupping the tiny skull in her hand, supporting the still-fragile neck. She wonders who this helpless, delicate being will become, what she’ll do with her life. Whether she’ll look like her mother.

Her mother. That’s an unnerving phrase. Can she be the mother this child needs? How will she keep her safe from all the terrors this world holds? 

“So, have you finally decided on a name?” her husband asks, his voice teasing yet filled with love.

“Oh, yes, Hank. Once I saw her face, I knew. She’s Buffy.”


	12. Guilty Pleasures

The yearly ritual began with a lie: Willow told her parents she had to help Xander study for a test. On the ratty plaid couch, she always sat in the middle, Jesse on her left, Xander on her right. On their laps were paper plates of fluffernutter sandwiches and oreos; three mugs of Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa (with mini-marshmallows) were lined up on the coffee table. 

The best part was the ending: when Charlie Brown’s sad little tree was trimmed and everyone sang, Xander got up and did his Snoopy dance. Even Mr. Harris put down his beer and laughed.


	13. Slow

Xander usually put a pillow over his head when they started yelling, but this time, the yelling was about him.

“What the hell’s the matter with him? Best grade here is a C-minus!” Tony slammed something, and ice rattled into a glass.

“No, he got a B-plus in shop,” Xander’s mother offered. “He’s a good kid, Tony. Maybe a little slow, but he’ll catch up.”

“Slow, hell. Dumb as a post, that one. Well, I’m not going to any teacher conference. You can tell her, he’s not staying back again, he’s gonna graduate and start earning his own damn living.”


	14. Palm

Buffy felt the two hands that held hers trembling slightly “So, what do you see?”

“I see great violence. Your lifeline ends twice, and each time begins again.” 

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.” Buffy tried to pull her hand away, but the dark woman gripped it more tightly. 

“Not one, but two great loves. Watch for an older man. He will tell you what you need to know.” 

“Thanks, but I’m not into older men.” 

Merrick, idling nearby, watched her emerge from the semi-darkness of the tent. The time to tell her was almost here.


	15. A Simpler Life

Her daughter was in full sulk mode, but Joyce’s heart grew lighter as every mile of freeway took them further from L.A. She wouldn’t miss the life she was leaving: Hank’s lies and cheating; Buffy’s recent troubles at school; and her boss, who took credit for her ideas and blamed her when things went wrong.

Things had fallen neatly into place: the gallery owner in Sunnydale, eager to sell so he could return to England, and the divorce settlement just big enough for the down payment on a house. 

She hadn’t realized it would be so simple, changing her life.


	16. Shortest/Longest

They had only given him a week, most of it taken up with packing and farewells. There was legal paperwork too; after all, the mortality rate for active Watchers was high.

Now, on the plane, he cleaned his glasses and continued reviewing his notes.

Shortest-serving Slayer: Françoise Montville, April 10-22, 1943. Called and died, age 15.

Longest-serving Slayer: Eleanor Lawrence, March 9, 1726-February 10, 1760. Called age 14, died age 48.

Giles wondered where his Slayer’s record would fall, between these two extremes. His job was to keep her alive. 

He was destined ultimately to fail, as all Watchers did.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment. Commenting is caring.


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